A man named Stig is ploughing. He stoops over even though his back resists the effort. When he straightens up again the ring that he has bent over to pick up lies in his hand, a ring made to fit a finger.

As soon as he has the ring Stig knows that it is no ordinary ring. He considers throwing it away so as not to tempt fate, but he simply cannot help examining it more closely. Although almost no air is stirring, it seems as if a gale is blowing through the circumference of the ring. He tries to put it on his finger but the blast is too strong and prevents him from doing so. Only when he turns the ring around and puts it on with the wind rather than against it does he succeed.

Stig goes on with his ploughing. He is tired, the soil is hard, and he is sweating. He would like to stop, but he still has a long way to go. Stig curses the bad luck that brought him to this place.

When finally he is on the way home after his heavy labour and is preoccupied with thoughts about the miserable way things are arranged in this world, he suddenly hears voices around him. Nothing of this kind has ever happened to him when he has been alone. He is alone now.

The voices come from his left hand. When he tries to distinguish between them he perceives one that reminds him of his own, a voice that in a cheerful tone utters some incomprehensible words, something like ‘I believe the Brain is with me’. A second voice laughs uproariously while a woman squeals. A third mutters the same words over and over again.

‘That's all I need’, Stig says to himself. ‘Now I'm going out of my mind.’

When Stig reaches home there is a woman in his house. She is complaining. The woman is Karen, and she is his wife. Dog-tired, he lashes out at her, but Karen ducks in a practised manner without once interrupting her flow of reproaches.